Moyer Aims to Keep it Fresh at Historic Hotels, Eureka Springs

Longtime Eureka Springs hotelier Jack Moyer has made it his life’s work to restore and maintain longstanding, landmark structures as hospitality entities that attract 21st-century clientele. He strives to keep his hotels relevant while also preserving the integrity of what he calls the city’s irreplaceable assets.

The Elmira, New York, native discovered a love for historic hotels in the late 1980s while training at the Chicago Hilton & Towers, and he has never turned back.

To Moyer, who served on the Historic Hotels of America board for nine years, operating historic hotels presents a welcome challenge.

The industry niche does not follow a cookie-cutter formula and upkeep costs can double that of newer hotels, he said. Moyer estimates restorations at the Crescent and Basin Park total about a half-million dollars each year.

It all adds up, he said, whether it is $100,000 to replace carpeting in the hallways or $19,000 to repair an unstable chimney.

Moyer believes it is necessary to have multiple business facets tied to a historic hotel in order to make it sustainable.

For example, the Crescent features a day spa and is a hot spot for weddings, and those two elements were absent from the hotel 20 years ago, Moyer said.

The hotel also expanded its business in 2008 by building four cottages on the property.

Restaurants, gift shops and ghost tours also generate revenue for the hotels, as there are long-held rumors that both the Crescent and Basin Park are haunted.

Although the supernatural is now a major draw of the 129-year-old Crescent, it was not enough to sustain the hotel in the mid-1990s, when it was struggling financially and in severe disrepair.

Soon after he was hired, Moyer oversaw a multimillion-dollar renovation, but then could not rely on word-of-mouth advertising, because most of the chatter surrounding the once-dilapidated hotel was negative.

Moyer depended on the emerging medium of the Internet to cheaply and directly connect with potential customers, and he touts this approach within his historic hotel management consulting company, Historica, which he owns with wife Rachael. 

His consulting work also focuses on community development, something Moyer considers a key element of the hospitality industry in Eureka Springs.

“One of the mayors used to say, ‘So goes the Crescent, so goes the town,’” he said.

While Basin Park, a 60-room, seven-story property built downtown in 1905, is notable in its own right, “the Crescent Hotel is often referred to as the symbol of hospitality in Arkansas,” Moyer said. However, he believes its relationship with the town is symbiotic.

Because of this, he is heavily involved in the community and in the rebranding of the city, with a desire to see Eureka “stay small but keep it fresh and relevant.”

He is chair of the Eureka Springs Downtown Network, was twice chair of the Greater Eureka Springs Chamber of Commerce, and is involved with the city’s tourism cooperative and also the Northwest Arkansas Tourism Association, of which he serves as second-year past chair.

Moyer helped launch the city’s Mardi Gras celebration about 10 years ago, recently introduced an indie/folk January concert series called the Ozark Mountain Music Festival, and he and his wife created a scholarship program for employees and children of employees.

Developing future leaders in his industry is a priority for him. He has served on the University of Arkansas hospitality advisory board for several years and teaches hospitality classes at the UA and also Eureka Springs schools.

His expertise in the field is bolstered by his receiving the 2008 Golden Key hotelier of the year award from the Arkansas Hospitality Association and the 2011 general manager award from Historic Hotels of America.

Since he was a member of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class in 1999 at the age of 31, Moyer said he has found real joy in raising his family in the Eureka Springs community. When he is not working, he enjoys spending time with his stepchildren and biological daughter, 18-year-old Jordan, and hiking.